Meet Irena Murphy | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Irena Murphy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Irena, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I love creating and I need to create space for more and more art so I decided to start selling my pieces so that they don’t pile up! I also realized that not everyone is an artist and other people might appreciate having original art in their homes. So that pushed me to be more open about sharing my work with others and making it more accessible.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art journey started off as a simple daily scribble. Just to put paint down and create. But I quickly got more and more interested in painting and I started trying every medium I could. I found water color to be more my style with the flow and transparent nature of it but then I discovered alcohol ink through social media and quickly became obsessed with that. It has a similar feel of watercolor but with more pigmented and marbleized look with how the alcohol dries.

I suppose my style in alcohol ink is different than most I see just in that I’ve made my own techniques by trial and error. A lot of my art is abstract florals that can be both beautiful and dark. I have been trying a new style of white ink on black paper that creates a ghost like image. I describe it as etherial flower x-ray.

I think after a certain point in posting my art on instagram I started getting requests for commissions or to purchase my pieces from friends and family. It grew into needing to both clear space for newer art work but also to recoup the cost of art supplies. I had to do a lot of research on how to finish my pieces with varnish and also how to package and protect them while shipping. That was a stressful learning curve! Sorting out the business end of putting together a website and looking into prints and how that all works is not very artistic. I think a lot of artists get hung up on this part.

It’s actually been a challenge to figure out how to sell art in a professional way in general. There’s a lot of little odds and ends that go into it that I didn’t think about till I got started. It’d be must easier to sell via DM messages or something but my hope it to grow it into something substantial and more accessible.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love this question! I think there’s a lot of inspiring places in LA. If my friend was an artist like me I’d probably take them to some of my favorite art galleries. In Silver Lake I’d say go to Wacos and visit the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in the back. Then maybe grab lunch at Alcove and drinks at Black cat.

Downtown has amazing and inspiring architecture as well. The Broad museum is of course a must. As well as my favorite galley so far Corey Helford Gallery which is not too far away. Death and Co. and The Mermaid are some of my favorite bars in that area.

If you’re looking for some floral inspiration as I always am I suggest maybe finding your way to the Huntington Gardens in Arcadia. It took me years to find my way there and It a beautiful day spent!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to shoutout my friend Sterling at Kismet Salon! She’s a creative whirlwind that lives a truly artistic life through her art as a hairstylist. I have some art up at Kismet salon in their gallery room and I appreciate the gals there supporting local artists. 

Website: www.anotherlaartist.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anotherlaartist/

Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@anotherlaartist